Countee Cullen quotes
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“There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.”
-- Countee Cullen -
“The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.”
-- Countee Cullen -
“I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books
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“The key to all strange things is in thy heart..../ My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen, “The Shroud Of Color”
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“My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books
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“Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!”
-- Countee CullenSource : "Yet Do I Marvel" l. 13 (1925)
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“All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.66, Library of America
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“Dame Poverty gave me my name, And Pain godfathered me.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.51, Library of America
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“What is last year's snow to me, Last year's anything? The tree Budding yearly must forget How its past arose or set”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.64, Library of America
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“We shall not always plant while others reap”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.93, Library of America
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“Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, Daring even to give You Dark despairing features”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.66, Library of America
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“I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.42, Library of America
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“[W]e have always resented the natural inclination of most white people to demand spirituals the moment it is known that a Negro is about to sing. So often the request has seemed to savor of the feeling that we could do this and this alone.”
-- Countee Cullen -
“I cut my teeth as the black raccoon-- For implements of battle.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.51, Library of America
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“The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars, is no less lovely being dark”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.93, Library of America
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“Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, So I make an idle boast; Jesus of the twice-turned cheek Lamb of God, although I speak With my mouth thus, in my heart Do I play a double part.”
-- Countee Cullen -
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“Africa? A book one thumbs Listlessly, till slumber comes.”
-- Countee Cullen -
“Quaint, outlandish heathen gods Black men fashion out of rods”
-- Countee Cullen -
“If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.31, Library of America
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“Death cut the strings that gave me life, And handed me to Sorrow, The only kind of middle wife My folks could beg or borrow.”
-- Countee Cullen -
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“Never love with all your heart, It only ends in aching.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.179, Library of America
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“Not for myself I make this prayer, But for this race of mine That stretches forth from shadowed places Dark hands for bread and wine.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.52, Library of America
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“Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed.”
-- Countee Cullen -
“Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black.”
-- Countee CullenSource : 1925 On These I Stand,'Heritage'.
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“What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?”
-- Countee CullenSource : 1925 On These I Stand,'Heritage'.
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“We were not made to eternally weep.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen, “From The Dark Tower”
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“I have a rendezvous with life.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.22, Library of America
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“Give but a grain of the heart's rich seed, Confine some under cover, And when love goes, bid him God-speed. And find another lover.”
-- Countee Cullen -
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“The loss of love is a terrible thing; They lie who say that death is worse.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.107, Library of America
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“Whatever lives is granted breath But by the grace and sufferance of Death.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books
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“For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.”
-- Countee CullenSource : Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books
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